I Don't Want to Die in the Desert

Sunday night I will be preaching from Deuteronomy 8.  Like so much in the OT it is a passage that rehearses scenes from Israel's past for the sake of warning them, reminding them, exhorting them, or encouraging them.  Here it functions as a warning.  They are finally poised to enter the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the desert.  An entire generation of people have been killed off by God for their sins (mostly grumbling, does God take grumbling more seriously than we do?).  Now the next generation is ready, and God reminds them by taking them back in time.  He shows them how he rescued them out of slavery in Egypt, how He led them through the wilderness, feeding them with manna and water from rocks.  And now they're ready to cross the Jordan to the land God promised, and God says remember my ways.  Remember how I've been faithful to you.  The tragedy was that the wilderness wandering wasn't supposed to have happened.  God never intended to keep them out there that long, to kill of the entire generation of the faithless.  It was supposed to be temporary on their way to something better.  But for all God had done, they forgot.  They grumbled, and complained, and were thankless in every way about the wilderness, and God got fed up and finally said, "Fine, you don't like it, then don't come into your new house I've been promising.  You can die in the back yard."  I'm scared at the number of times I find myself comparing with the unfaithful Israelites.  Always complaining about the station in life I'm in.  With every new gift, wishing it were more.  If we're not careful we'll find ourselves dying in the desert without entering into the blessings God has for us now.  I don't mean believers losing their salvation.  I mean missing the abundance that this life should be lived in.  The blessings we missed out on b/c we decided we knew better than God.  I don't want to die in the desert.